January 21, 2021 • 26 mins
In a provocative and unfiltered conversation, outspoken actress Jameela Jamil reveals the secret struggles she’s faced and how her most shocking behavior radically saved her life, helped her heal and made her an unlikely inspiration
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Pop podcast all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook Watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple podcasts on this Red Table Talk. I can
always respect someone who can speak their truth and send
(00:20):
in the heat. She's been called the most controversial person
on the Internet. I was just such a like, bitter, twisted,
angry woman. I would hate me too. Outspoken actress Jamila
Jamal reveals her secret struggles. I tried to kill myself.
I also was suicidal and it's happened twice in my life.
Behind her public feuds, everyone has a limit of how
(00:43):
much you can eat. They haven't kicked me off of
all of my social media's when I was like fourteen,
Why she turned against me? Forgive me for being this blunt.
I don't know if I like this woman. Wait a
minute now, her bowl transformation. It is an act of
rebellion to love yourself. I'm looking at you, and I'm
like that some real courage. You were speaking my life.
(01:10):
We have a great guest today. She describes herself as
a rebel. You can just call me a crash test dummy.
That's what I am. A disaster. Not going to the the stairs,
not going to stair, Welcome to the table. So I
was just reading that you have an eight year experiment,
(01:33):
and you are the experiment. Explain eight years ago. To
start off as cheerfully as possible, I tried to kill
myself because I had a nervous breakdown. And it was
the second time I tried, and I thought, well, I'm
just going to do it again if something huge doesn't change,
if everything doesn't change, So I decided to try and
(01:56):
figure out my trauma, what had taken me to this
local point, this like young woman I was on television.
I was just like I had attention all these different
things that I was told my whole life would make
me happy, and I was so unhappy. I was so lonely,
so miserable. And I realized after seeking help, I had
very severe oppression and that my depression was caused by
(02:19):
repressed rage. And upon realizing that, I was like, Okay,
I have to just completely change everything. I was a
very well behaved, repressed young woman who was being stuck
in this box that was too small for me. I'm huge,
so I decided to just get rid of my filter.
(02:39):
Two mixed results on the internet, right, and I decided
to just never hold anything in ever again. And so,
while I understand that it is not always the most
responsible position to take, especially when you are a public figure,
this has just been my personal journey to try to
not kill myself again. What was at last draw that
(03:01):
made you decide this is it and I'm going to
try to take my life. At the time, I had pneumonia,
but I was still able to go to work, but
I wasn't able to lie down and sleep. And I
was also a DJ, so I was djaying well night,
coming back, working myself to the bone because also as
a woman, you're always told that you have a sprint,
not marathon, and so you never say no to a job,
(03:22):
you never say no to an opportunity. Right, I was
working myself to death. Everything was falling apart, and I
think I just reached my limit. Everyone has a limit
of how much you can eat in this world, and
my my cup of runneth over. And so I was like, right,
I just I can't. I can't do this. I can't
take the pain or the loneliness or the numbness any longer.
(03:45):
I just like, what is the point. I'm not contributing
anything to anyone. Everyone would be better off without me.
That's that That's often a narrative suicidal people have that.
I feel like when she said repress rage, you, I
had the same experience, got a level of success, pretty
much got everything I had asked for, and had basically
(04:08):
what I believe is a nervous breakdown, and also was suicidal.
And it's happened twice in my life. And I found
that the same thing that it was all based upon,
repressed rage. I was sitting on so much rage that
was covering my sorrow and despair. Did you have a
(04:29):
numb feeling of depression? Was your depression I'm so sad,
I'm lying down, I'm eating ice cream listening to sad songs.
Or was your kind of numbness of detachment? It was
a numbness and detachment. This is my theory that comes
from literally zero schooling. Sorry, I take this with a
life souls. But the reason I think we've become numb
(04:51):
when we have repressed rage is because there is a
dishonesty in it. You are lying, not only to yourself,
you're lying to everyone that you're okay when you're not. Yes,
I think that that creates a kind of like moat
almost between who you really are and who you're projecting
yourself as. And in that space is where the numbness lies.
If you are you are existing outside of your own body.
(05:13):
And I think that we also think of depression because
of the way that it's been relayed in media and
in music as always sadness and get out of bed.
I was high functioning. When you talk about kind of
being outside of your body, I can definitely relate to
that because during the time when I was self harming
myself and in that like really deep black hole, I
(05:35):
felt exactly that, like it almost didn't matter. I can
do this to myself and I don't even really feel
this that numbness, like I don't feel on the outside.
I'm trying to feel on the inside, but it's like
I don't even feel that. So it makes it even
more difficult. You know, you lose respect for yourself, you
(05:56):
lose respect for your own life with you, I understand
because as I thought, any problem that you had was
my fault. Yeah, well that's not true. No, No, I
know that now, But my problems were your fault. I've
come here today to confront you. It's amazing to talk
(06:17):
about this because I don't feel like enough people talk
about the dark side. Yeah. It was project unlearned, you know. Yeah,
I realized that I had everything wrong, everything backwards. I
was just such a like bitter, twisted, angry woman. Everyone's
present self comes from who they were in the past.
But were there any like key points in your childhood
(06:38):
that you think you were like, Okay, no, I'm going
to hold onto this feeling and I'm going to bring
it with me. I think sometimes you can't help but
take it with you, because the harm is so intense
when you're so little. I was abused as a child. Also,
growing up in a household full of so many so
like devastatingly mentally unwealth pyle with like we had like
(07:01):
bipolar in my household, paranoid schizophrenia in my household, depression
manic depression addiction o c D, like like really just
debilitating o c D. And so I didn't have anyone
that I wasn't looking after. So no one was able
to look after me because I was the only person
who who wasn't suffering from a type of psychosis or
mental illness at the time, and so I kind of
(07:23):
grew up smug thinking, well, like, you know, I'm I'm fine,
I'm the strong one. I'm stoic, you know, and I
developed this weird like ye still cried around how under
like unfazed I am. I'm also from England, and so
we like to fully stiff up a lip and hold
everything inside and we consider that to be like very
very like valiant and honorable. Yeah, we feel that way.
(07:47):
In Black movie, it's like to be able to just
endure whatever and being put on your big girl pants. Yeah.
Well with South Asians, like you're not even allowed to
say that your troubles, you're not allowed to go to
therapy because then it's a sign that you're dishonoring your family.
You should never feel shame about seeking help for a
(08:08):
mental health problem, just like you wouldn't feel shame for
seeking help for a sore throat. We don't look at
it as a very very natural human experience. Everyone is
carrying some sort of trauma. You don't have to have
just gone to a war zone to come back with PTSD.
And I think because we only look too very big,
dramatic moments as markers of what trauma can be caused
by a lot of people missed the signs. Yeah, I
(08:31):
can always respect someone who can speak their truth and
in the heat, I know that when you went on
social media and talked about having an abortion, was that
part of your healing process? Yeah, so it was tried
to kill myself. Starts to investigate why I wanted to
kill myself, tried to save my own life. And then
once you step out of the worst part of mental illness,
(08:52):
it feels like stepping out of a club but four am,
where it's only when you're outside on the quiet street
that you can hear how loud it wasn't there, and
you're like, oh my odd. I was in that yes,
And so once my mind was clear, I started to
pay attention. There was this one particular event that set
me off in a bigger way than I'd ever been
like piste off before, where I had gotten this big
job on the radio was like one of the biggest
jobs in radio's history in the UK. I was the
(09:15):
first woman in sixty years to ever have been given
this role. And the day that my first figures got announced,
I had gained like two hundred thousand listeners, which never
happens to yours lyrics. They reported all of my male
colleagues listeners, and all they reported on me was a
picture of me having gained weight. They didn't care about
any listeners I had gained. They cared about how many
pounds I had gained, and all these photographs ridiculing my size,
(09:38):
and I realized, oh my god, you can't even see me.
You just need to know I'm thin over the airwaves, right,
And I was like, oh god, that's still all I'm worth.
After everything I've achieved, after everything that women have achieved,
we are still valued only but by the numbers on
a scale. Yes. And then I was piste and that
just became the first part of me just being like,
(09:59):
you know, I'm just going to say whatever I want
all the time. And it was addictive. Stop telling you.
It's like you can't It's like it's relentless. We know.
Because also I realized the more authentic you become, you'll
(10:20):
find that people will kind of fall away as much
as people like I gotta keep it real, I need
to be true. It seems as though when somebody is
practicing real authenticity. People like, oh no, that's cant them
too much. Then when they see it, they're like they're like, yeah,
(10:41):
this is exactly let me tell you. Any authentic life
is messy and it comes with some deep battle scars,
but you gotta address those battle scars and gold and
wear it like a crown, you know how. Let you
get to the point where it didn't matter, where you
(11:01):
didn't care what people thought about you. That's my problem.
I get really really absorbed in what other people think
about me. I think realizing that I was okay with
taking my own life was that for me. I was like, well,
I haven't truly nothing to lose any more. And upon
realizing that, I was like, okay, it is not your
responsibility to be liked or understood or approved of by everyone. Really,
(11:25):
even anyone say that again said that I was like,
I never worry about being liked because it's a trick bag.
Because that's what that is the space of manipulation. If
you need somebody to like you, it will be too
difficult for someone to to act from an authentic place
because the first thing you're thinking about is okay, if
(11:48):
I do this and all of this, well, here's the deal.
Most people have a difficult time liking themselves, so it's
almost like, you know, egging someone to see your true
image through a correct lens. It's not going to happen, no,
So you really need to spend the work on you,
(12:09):
on you everything. It doesn't it well, everything comes back
to yourself. Clean your own home first. That is so important.
You've got in your own home first. Understand your own
behavior so that when you get through with all of that,
when you get through with all that cleansing, you can
(12:30):
come back into the world differently. It is an act
of rebellion to love yourself, to accept and to be content.
Because women, we are so trained to be so concerned
with being likable, with being affectionate, enough, with smiling all
the time, like, we have so many expectations of how
we're supposed to present ourselves. We have so much extra
homework to do as women. We're never supposed to aids.
(12:52):
We're supposed to stay thin for the rest of your life.
You're just supposed to always be on your best behavior,
always be in a good mood, always be sex like,
always be what every single individual, different person with different
needs want you to be. All at the same time,
constantly men are not given this extra homework to do.
How are we ever going to catch up as a
gender if we have all of this extra homework? And
(13:13):
so I think it was realizing the injustice of me
being asked to all of these different things that my
male friends were not asked to think about. So they're
just thinking about the prize, they're thinking about the end goal,
they're thinking about their happiness, and I'm thinking about everyone
else's happiness and trying to cheat gravity and time. I
wouldn't make the exact parallel, but Kimberly Latrice Jones, who's
(13:34):
a wonderful writer and activist, talking about what's going on
currently within black rights in America, she was saying that
they are lucky that all we're asking for as a
quality and revenge right. That was real and that was
the most unbelievable sentence of the year. And I feel like,
in a lesser extent or in a different extent, the
(13:54):
same potentially exists of men with women. Imagine happiest we
are exactly imagine if we did unto them what they
have done to us. I've heard so many people say, um,
do you really think that the me too? Movement is
actually going to help the evolution of women, because you know,
(14:15):
we don't want men to feel, you know, threatened. But
and I'm like, yeah, exactly. The whole point is to
show that you can't do this anymore. There is a consequence.
There is a loss, and you will lose your career
or your job if you do do these things. And
almost like it's a preposterous thing. Now that there's consequences,
(14:38):
I feel like it's up to us to be like, no,
boys won't be boys. Boys will be held accountable for
their actions. And that's where we're moving towards. So game,
I know that you've learned some lessons in regards to
judging people, have you, Jamila, Yeah, I was a real
dick really, not even that long ago. Really, I was
(15:03):
a misogynist. Really wait a minute, yeah great, let me
make sure I'm not a muslagynist. No. I don't think
there's no way you could be as bad as I was. Like,
I was bullied at school by girls, and I didn't
always have great relationships with all of the women in
my family, and so I didn't have a good vibe
of women growing up, and I would speak disparagingly about women,
(15:25):
and I thought women were just always in drama. I
had all this rage and I would project it at
women at the nearest easiest target. And so there is
documented proof of me slut shaming loads of female celebrities
like Mileley, Beyonce, Rihanna, like Kim all these different people eggs.
And I was doing it because I was in pain,
(15:46):
like I was a troll. I thought I was doing feminism.
And now you don't steer away from like the public views.
I was this slut shaming woman hating. That's because now
vibe is like, so I would have never thought that
you would have done those things. Because people change, People
can grow, grow and change, yes, and I'm from their mistakes.
(16:10):
It's why I have not removed myself from society, in
spite of being asked too many of them, the people
on Twitter, and I understand the reason I don't is
because I would like to be that proof that human
beings can redeem themselves. When did you realize or identify
that behavior is like, oh no, that doesn't work. Years
after it happened, and I, you know, I had been
(16:31):
sexually assaulted, and I did not make any connection to
those two behaviors. So I'm sexually assaulted. I'm too afraid
to confront my rapist, and so instead I get angry
at all women who sexualize themselves because I blame them
for why men have always sexualized me since I was
a child. And I'm like, it's your fault because you
(16:52):
make them think that they have permission to my body
worth That's never the case. And I was afraid deep down,
and so that's how I projected my pain. That's deep though,
that is that there was a protection mechanism because of
your fear. So it was like, Okay, I can't go
after I can't go after the predator, the perpetrator, but
I'm going to go after what the easy makes Yeah,
(17:14):
the easy target. And I'm still so ashamed. But even
though I understand why I did it, I think it's
important to be accountable about hold yourself responsible for the
fact that whatever happens to you. It might explain what
you did, but it doesn't excuse it. When you talk
about that you were doing all the sludge shaming and
then you came into a place where you're like, okay,
I gotta change, right, I would imagine that you have
(17:35):
a whole different perspective on cancel culture. I think we've
had a lot of very privileged, powerful people come out
and be like, I'm being canceled when they're just being criticized. Right.
It is very hard to cancel a privileged person, right
because money and power mean you can just shut up
for a minute and come back. It's people who don't
(17:57):
have privilege who actually lose their jobs, who actually lose
their house, who actually maybe become homeless because they lost
their job and couldn't make a medical fill And so
I think that it's really important for celebrities to stop
crying about cancelation if they haven't actually lost a job.
So understanding what cancelation means versus call out culture, ye,
call out call out so all our culture versus cancel
(18:20):
culture exactly, I really believe and call out culture. Everything
I've learned, everything that's made me a better person, is
when I've been piled onto and called out by people online.
They have made me a better person. I am grateful
for them, even if I'm a bit sassy in the moment,
I'm secretly learning and listening, educating myself. Shutting up sometimes
is never enough amount of regret. I have that I've
(18:46):
said in an angry moment, but I can't take it back,
and I won't take it back because women reserve the
right to up and come back when a man up,
when a man about my effing. But when a man
makes a huge mistake, even like beats his wife, he
will get the big g Q article two years later,
and he's being shot beautifully and he looks really pensive
(19:09):
and all the photography, and they'll be like, I went
to rehab, like I came from an abusive home. The
certainly other and I respect all that right. But they'll
be welcomed back like what a brave man. He told
us his whole story, and he's already worked on himself.
A woman never gets that opportunity. That's it. She's cast
off and then she disappended and she almost cancels herself.
(19:29):
We almost remove ourselves when we think everyone doesn't like
us and we've messed up because we know that he
and and that's why I'm looking at you and I'm like,
that's some real curtey. You didn't stop like posting or
shy away from you again. All of my publicists advised
(19:49):
I was like, no, because I feel it. They hadn't
kicked me off with my Twitter and all of my
social media's when I was like fourteen, I was just
like right and everything I thought and they had to
take it away. Well, I mean, I wish I'd had
anyone to do that for me, but I'm kind of
glad I didn't, because it's important that women can see
(20:11):
that you can survive, you can get told off, you
can get rid killed, you can get lied about, you
can be smeared, and you can still I would hate
me too if I just knew me from what I
read determinate, Like back, what are some of the biggest
lessons you've learned? Practice self defense of the mind. Yeah,
(20:33):
you don't have to follow every single celebrity if they
trigger you about your lifestyle, about your clothing, about the
way you look about your skin. Like if you feel
bad thoughts about yourself from looking at someone's page, it's
okay to block, mute, delete, repeat. It's vital. Actually, it's
so vital for your mental health. There's so much negativity.
(20:54):
You really have to pay attention to what you're feeding yourself,
and so many lies, like there's there's so many photoshop
and like, you know, all these celebrities selling all these
detox and diet products or waste trainers, or it's like
internet powder that's going to make you fire like three days.
And I know that because I took all of them.
(21:15):
It is unbelievable. That my still unbelievable all the stuff
that I took, and I'm so sorry. I know I'm
never coming back. I have horrified your mother. Really great
little experiment where I followed all of my favorite women's magazines,
(21:38):
and I also followed all of my boyfriend's magazines. Devastating
to the difference between, like how he's being nurtured and
nourished all the time, and mine was all just to
make me look thinner and younger, and all the stories
were just about like which hairstyle suits your face shape?
The most women made to feel insecure, like what else
can we fix on you? And they make us insecure
about every single inch of our bodies. I saw some
(21:59):
very famous women talking about needing her earlobes, like redone
earlobe plastic, and it's like, I'm worried about rape, I'm
worried about equity and equality. I'm worried about my reproductive
rights being taken away. I don't want to worry about
my motherlobes. I don't want to worry about my elbow.
Fat me called out, this is what I think is
so interesting, And when I figured this out, it changed
(22:21):
everything for me. It's a perfect cycle. You can go
through any woman who has ever stood out or spoken
out or just done really well. For a while, we
build her up, we exaggerate how fantastic, how beautiful, how
incredible she is. That people start to become a little
bit sick of her face, and that's when the destruction
becomes easy because we have no empathy left for her.
We have no sympathy. We don't trust. So when I
first grew up, I adored you and like the nutty
(22:44):
professor and everything you ever did before that, I was
obsessed with you. And then I started reading headlines about
you around the time that Will was doing Wild World West.
I remember the exact headline that made me be like,
I don't know if I like this woman. It was
forgive me in this blunt but it was like Jada says,
stay away from sexy Salma. Oh yeah, like uotations as
(23:08):
if they knew you had said it in the privacy
of your own Next never know what actually happens to
be one of my favorite friends, one of my favorite women.
But I believed the headlines that I read about you
because you were just doing too well and your marriage
was too happy, and like you're writing, and it is
a cycle. I've been in that cycle quite a few time,
(23:31):
and you keep going. I love you. And it was
because partially of this show and also just watching you
come and speak out about so many things that just
made me fall in love with you again because finally
you were speaking on your own terms. You had to
build your own show to finally not be misrepresented. I've
come to the understanding that were things that I've gone through,
(23:53):
and you know, we have raised my kids the way
I've decided to have my marriage. I look in my life,
I go, I get it. I can see what I
wouldn't be good for you. But it's like you get
to a place where you're so comfortable with yourself. It's like,
it's all right, you don't have to like me. It's okay.
I remember the whole Anne Hathaway thing, the way that
(24:13):
our generation like ridicule this woman for just rehearsing an
Oscar speech. Who wouldn't rehearse an Oscar speak the way
she got troll. I mean, she was one of the
dumbest cases of cancel culture, where it's just like they
canceled her for seeming pre rehearses like, we cannot bear
an organized woman. We cannot bear a premeditated woman, a
confident woman. We cannot bear a woman who has a plan.
(24:38):
There's nothing more dangerous with our society. And so a
woman must seem always grateful, always surprised. We must always
seem like lost little girls. Yeah, we have to make
this face on Instagram because we need to make sure
that men understand that we don't know where we are
or what's going on, and so they must come and
save us. This was a great conversy too, And I
(25:01):
have to say that we like Legendary. I love that
show very much. I'm so inspired by you the show,
what you've done with it. This feels like being invited
on OPRAH in the nineties. You know what I mean,
You really talk about real that I've never heard people
talk about on the TV before. You're changing the conversation
(25:21):
for women, and I see the impact that you're having
in real time. But I took it really seriously like
being invited on this show because there are people who
genuinely say about me every day that she is the
worst person on the internet, and I'm like the worst,
really real me, the worst, Give me top ten. A
brown woman with passion is always going to get the heat,
(25:43):
not always. That's what we're here to do. It ends,
It ends without for sure. To join the red table
Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow
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Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk
(26:05):
podcast produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Red Table Pop podcast all your favorite episodes from the
Facebook Watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
on Apple podcasts on this Red Table Talk. I can
always respect someone who can speak their truth and send
(00:20):
in the heat. She's been called the most controversial person
on the Internet. I was just such a like, bitter, twisted,
angry woman. I would hate me too. Outspoken actress Jamila
Jamal reveals her secret struggles. I tried to kill myself.
I also was suicidal and it's happened twice in my life.
Behind her public feuds, everyone has a limit of how
(00:43):
much you can eat. They haven't kicked me off of
all of my social media's when I was like fourteen,
Why she turned against me? Forgive me for being this blunt.
I don't know if I like this woman. Wait a
minute now, her bowl transformation. It is an act of
rebellion to love yourself. I'm looking at you, and I'm
like that some real courage. You were speaking my life.
(01:10):
We have a great guest today. She describes herself as
a rebel. You can just call me a crash test dummy.
That's what I am. A disaster. Not going to the the stairs,
not going to stair, Welcome to the table. So I
was just reading that you have an eight year experiment,
(01:33):
and you are the experiment. Explain eight years ago. To
start off as cheerfully as possible, I tried to kill
myself because I had a nervous breakdown. And it was
the second time I tried, and I thought, well, I'm
just going to do it again if something huge doesn't change,
if everything doesn't change, So I decided to try and
(01:56):
figure out my trauma, what had taken me to this
local point, this like young woman I was on television.
I was just like I had attention all these different
things that I was told my whole life would make
me happy, and I was so unhappy. I was so lonely,
so miserable. And I realized after seeking help, I had
very severe oppression and that my depression was caused by
(02:19):
repressed rage. And upon realizing that, I was like, Okay,
I have to just completely change everything. I was a
very well behaved, repressed young woman who was being stuck
in this box that was too small for me. I'm huge,
so I decided to just get rid of my filter.
(02:39):
Two mixed results on the internet, right, and I decided
to just never hold anything in ever again. And so,
while I understand that it is not always the most
responsible position to take, especially when you are a public figure,
this has just been my personal journey to try to
not kill myself again. What was at last draw that
(03:01):
made you decide this is it and I'm going to
try to take my life. At the time, I had pneumonia,
but I was still able to go to work, but
I wasn't able to lie down and sleep. And I
was also a DJ, so I was djaying well night,
coming back, working myself to the bone because also as
a woman, you're always told that you have a sprint,
not marathon, and so you never say no to a job,
(03:22):
you never say no to an opportunity. Right, I was
working myself to death. Everything was falling apart, and I
think I just reached my limit. Everyone has a limit
of how much you can eat in this world, and
my my cup of runneth over. And so I was like, right,
I just I can't. I can't do this. I can't
take the pain or the loneliness or the numbness any longer.
(03:45):
I just like, what is the point. I'm not contributing
anything to anyone. Everyone would be better off without me.
That's that That's often a narrative suicidal people have that.
I feel like when she said repress rage, you, I
had the same experience, got a level of success, pretty
much got everything I had asked for, and had basically
(04:08):
what I believe is a nervous breakdown, and also was suicidal.
And it's happened twice in my life. And I found
that the same thing that it was all based upon,
repressed rage. I was sitting on so much rage that
was covering my sorrow and despair. Did you have a
(04:29):
numb feeling of depression? Was your depression I'm so sad,
I'm lying down, I'm eating ice cream listening to sad songs.
Or was your kind of numbness of detachment? It was
a numbness and detachment. This is my theory that comes
from literally zero schooling. Sorry, I take this with a
life souls. But the reason I think we've become numb
(04:51):
when we have repressed rage is because there is a
dishonesty in it. You are lying, not only to yourself,
you're lying to everyone that you're okay when you're not. Yes,
I think that that creates a kind of like moat
almost between who you really are and who you're projecting
yourself as. And in that space is where the numbness lies.
If you are you are existing outside of your own body.
(05:13):
And I think that we also think of depression because
of the way that it's been relayed in media and
in music as always sadness and get out of bed.
I was high functioning. When you talk about kind of
being outside of your body, I can definitely relate to
that because during the time when I was self harming
myself and in that like really deep black hole, I
(05:35):
felt exactly that, like it almost didn't matter. I can
do this to myself and I don't even really feel
this that numbness, like I don't feel on the outside.
I'm trying to feel on the inside, but it's like
I don't even feel that. So it makes it even
more difficult. You know, you lose respect for yourself, you
(05:56):
lose respect for your own life with you, I understand
because as I thought, any problem that you had was
my fault. Yeah, well that's not true. No, No, I
know that now, But my problems were your fault. I've
come here today to confront you. It's amazing to talk
(06:17):
about this because I don't feel like enough people talk
about the dark side. Yeah. It was project unlearned, you know. Yeah,
I realized that I had everything wrong, everything backwards. I
was just such a like bitter, twisted, angry woman. Everyone's
present self comes from who they were in the past.
But were there any like key points in your childhood
(06:38):
that you think you were like, Okay, no, I'm going
to hold onto this feeling and I'm going to bring
it with me. I think sometimes you can't help but
take it with you, because the harm is so intense
when you're so little. I was abused as a child. Also,
growing up in a household full of so many so
like devastatingly mentally unwealth pyle with like we had like
(07:01):
bipolar in my household, paranoid schizophrenia in my household, depression
manic depression addiction o c D, like like really just
debilitating o c D. And so I didn't have anyone
that I wasn't looking after. So no one was able
to look after me because I was the only person
who who wasn't suffering from a type of psychosis or
mental illness at the time, and so I kind of
(07:23):
grew up smug thinking, well, like, you know, I'm I'm fine,
I'm the strong one. I'm stoic, you know, and I
developed this weird like ye still cried around how under
like unfazed I am. I'm also from England, and so
we like to fully stiff up a lip and hold
everything inside and we consider that to be like very
very like valiant and honorable. Yeah, we feel that way.
(07:47):
In Black movie, it's like to be able to just
endure whatever and being put on your big girl pants. Yeah.
Well with South Asians, like you're not even allowed to
say that your troubles, you're not allowed to go to
therapy because then it's a sign that you're dishonoring your family.
You should never feel shame about seeking help for a
(08:08):
mental health problem, just like you wouldn't feel shame for
seeking help for a sore throat. We don't look at
it as a very very natural human experience. Everyone is
carrying some sort of trauma. You don't have to have
just gone to a war zone to come back with PTSD.
And I think because we only look too very big,
dramatic moments as markers of what trauma can be caused
by a lot of people missed the signs. Yeah, I
(08:31):
can always respect someone who can speak their truth and
in the heat, I know that when you went on
social media and talked about having an abortion, was that
part of your healing process? Yeah, so it was tried
to kill myself. Starts to investigate why I wanted to
kill myself, tried to save my own life. And then
once you step out of the worst part of mental illness,
(08:52):
it feels like stepping out of a club but four am,
where it's only when you're outside on the quiet street
that you can hear how loud it wasn't there, and
you're like, oh my odd. I was in that yes,
And so once my mind was clear, I started to
pay attention. There was this one particular event that set
me off in a bigger way than I'd ever been
like piste off before, where I had gotten this big
job on the radio was like one of the biggest
jobs in radio's history in the UK. I was the
(09:15):
first woman in sixty years to ever have been given
this role. And the day that my first figures got announced,
I had gained like two hundred thousand listeners, which never
happens to yours lyrics. They reported all of my male
colleagues listeners, and all they reported on me was a
picture of me having gained weight. They didn't care about
any listeners I had gained. They cared about how many
pounds I had gained, and all these photographs ridiculing my size,
(09:38):
and I realized, oh my god, you can't even see me.
You just need to know I'm thin over the airwaves, right,
And I was like, oh god, that's still all I'm worth.
After everything I've achieved, after everything that women have achieved,
we are still valued only but by the numbers on
a scale. Yes. And then I was piste and that
just became the first part of me just being like,
(09:59):
you know, I'm just going to say whatever I want
all the time. And it was addictive. Stop telling you.
It's like you can't It's like it's relentless. We know.
Because also I realized the more authentic you become, you'll
(10:20):
find that people will kind of fall away as much
as people like I gotta keep it real, I need
to be true. It seems as though when somebody is
practicing real authenticity. People like, oh no, that's cant them
too much. Then when they see it, they're like they're like, yeah,
(10:41):
this is exactly let me tell you. Any authentic life
is messy and it comes with some deep battle scars,
but you gotta address those battle scars and gold and
wear it like a crown, you know how. Let you
get to the point where it didn't matter, where you
(11:01):
didn't care what people thought about you. That's my problem.
I get really really absorbed in what other people think
about me. I think realizing that I was okay with
taking my own life was that for me. I was like, well,
I haven't truly nothing to lose any more. And upon
realizing that, I was like, okay, it is not your
responsibility to be liked or understood or approved of by everyone. Really,
(11:25):
even anyone say that again said that I was like,
I never worry about being liked because it's a trick bag.
Because that's what that is the space of manipulation. If
you need somebody to like you, it will be too
difficult for someone to to act from an authentic place
because the first thing you're thinking about is okay, if
(11:48):
I do this and all of this, well, here's the deal.
Most people have a difficult time liking themselves, so it's
almost like, you know, egging someone to see your true
image through a correct lens. It's not going to happen, no,
So you really need to spend the work on you,
(12:09):
on you everything. It doesn't it well, everything comes back
to yourself. Clean your own home first. That is so important.
You've got in your own home first. Understand your own
behavior so that when you get through with all of that,
when you get through with all that cleansing, you can
(12:30):
come back into the world differently. It is an act
of rebellion to love yourself, to accept and to be content.
Because women, we are so trained to be so concerned
with being likable, with being affectionate, enough, with smiling all
the time, like, we have so many expectations of how
we're supposed to present ourselves. We have so much extra
homework to do as women. We're never supposed to aids.
(12:52):
We're supposed to stay thin for the rest of your life.
You're just supposed to always be on your best behavior,
always be in a good mood, always be sex like,
always be what every single individual, different person with different
needs want you to be. All at the same time,
constantly men are not given this extra homework to do.
How are we ever going to catch up as a
gender if we have all of this extra homework? And
(13:13):
so I think it was realizing the injustice of me
being asked to all of these different things that my
male friends were not asked to think about. So they're
just thinking about the prize, they're thinking about the end goal,
they're thinking about their happiness, and I'm thinking about everyone
else's happiness and trying to cheat gravity and time. I
wouldn't make the exact parallel, but Kimberly Latrice Jones, who's
(13:34):
a wonderful writer and activist, talking about what's going on
currently within black rights in America, she was saying that
they are lucky that all we're asking for as a
quality and revenge right. That was real and that was
the most unbelievable sentence of the year. And I feel like,
in a lesser extent or in a different extent, the
(13:54):
same potentially exists of men with women. Imagine happiest we
are exactly imagine if we did unto them what they
have done to us. I've heard so many people say, um,
do you really think that the me too? Movement is
actually going to help the evolution of women, because you know,
(14:15):
we don't want men to feel, you know, threatened. But
and I'm like, yeah, exactly. The whole point is to
show that you can't do this anymore. There is a consequence.
There is a loss, and you will lose your career
or your job if you do do these things. And
almost like it's a preposterous thing. Now that there's consequences,
(14:38):
I feel like it's up to us to be like, no,
boys won't be boys. Boys will be held accountable for
their actions. And that's where we're moving towards. So game,
I know that you've learned some lessons in regards to
judging people, have you, Jamila, Yeah, I was a real
dick really, not even that long ago. Really, I was
(15:03):
a misogynist. Really wait a minute, yeah great, let me
make sure I'm not a muslagynist. No. I don't think
there's no way you could be as bad as I was. Like,
I was bullied at school by girls, and I didn't
always have great relationships with all of the women in
my family, and so I didn't have a good vibe
of women growing up, and I would speak disparagingly about women,
(15:25):
and I thought women were just always in drama. I
had all this rage and I would project it at
women at the nearest easiest target. And so there is
documented proof of me slut shaming loads of female celebrities
like Mileley, Beyonce, Rihanna, like Kim all these different people eggs.
And I was doing it because I was in pain,
(15:46):
like I was a troll. I thought I was doing feminism.
And now you don't steer away from like the public views.
I was this slut shaming woman hating. That's because now
vibe is like, so I would have never thought that
you would have done those things. Because people change, People
can grow, grow and change, yes, and I'm from their mistakes.
(16:10):
It's why I have not removed myself from society, in
spite of being asked too many of them, the people
on Twitter, and I understand the reason I don't is
because I would like to be that proof that human
beings can redeem themselves. When did you realize or identify
that behavior is like, oh no, that doesn't work. Years
after it happened, and I, you know, I had been
(16:31):
sexually assaulted, and I did not make any connection to
those two behaviors. So I'm sexually assaulted. I'm too afraid
to confront my rapist, and so instead I get angry
at all women who sexualize themselves because I blame them
for why men have always sexualized me since I was
a child. And I'm like, it's your fault because you
(16:52):
make them think that they have permission to my body
worth That's never the case. And I was afraid deep down,
and so that's how I projected my pain. That's deep though,
that is that there was a protection mechanism because of
your fear. So it was like, Okay, I can't go
after I can't go after the predator, the perpetrator, but
I'm going to go after what the easy makes Yeah,
(17:14):
the easy target. And I'm still so ashamed. But even
though I understand why I did it, I think it's
important to be accountable about hold yourself responsible for the
fact that whatever happens to you. It might explain what
you did, but it doesn't excuse it. When you talk
about that you were doing all the sludge shaming and
then you came into a place where you're like, okay,
I gotta change, right, I would imagine that you have
(17:35):
a whole different perspective on cancel culture. I think we've
had a lot of very privileged, powerful people come out
and be like, I'm being canceled when they're just being criticized. Right.
It is very hard to cancel a privileged person, right
because money and power mean you can just shut up
for a minute and come back. It's people who don't
(17:57):
have privilege who actually lose their jobs, who actually lose
their house, who actually maybe become homeless because they lost
their job and couldn't make a medical fill And so
I think that it's really important for celebrities to stop
crying about cancelation if they haven't actually lost a job.
So understanding what cancelation means versus call out culture, ye,
call out call out so all our culture versus cancel
(18:20):
culture exactly, I really believe and call out culture. Everything
I've learned, everything that's made me a better person, is
when I've been piled onto and called out by people online.
They have made me a better person. I am grateful
for them, even if I'm a bit sassy in the moment,
I'm secretly learning and listening, educating myself. Shutting up sometimes
is never enough amount of regret. I have that I've
(18:46):
said in an angry moment, but I can't take it back,
and I won't take it back because women reserve the
right to up and come back when a man up,
when a man about my effing. But when a man
makes a huge mistake, even like beats his wife, he
will get the big g Q article two years later,
and he's being shot beautifully and he looks really pensive
(19:09):
and all the photography, and they'll be like, I went
to rehab, like I came from an abusive home. The
certainly other and I respect all that right. But they'll
be welcomed back like what a brave man. He told
us his whole story, and he's already worked on himself.
A woman never gets that opportunity. That's it. She's cast
off and then she disappended and she almost cancels herself.
(19:29):
We almost remove ourselves when we think everyone doesn't like
us and we've messed up because we know that he
and and that's why I'm looking at you and I'm like,
that's some real curtey. You didn't stop like posting or
shy away from you again. All of my publicists advised
(19:49):
I was like, no, because I feel it. They hadn't
kicked me off with my Twitter and all of my
social media's when I was like fourteen, I was just
like right and everything I thought and they had to
take it away. Well, I mean, I wish I'd had
anyone to do that for me, but I'm kind of
glad I didn't, because it's important that women can see
(20:11):
that you can survive, you can get told off, you
can get rid killed, you can get lied about, you
can be smeared, and you can still I would hate
me too if I just knew me from what I
read determinate, Like back, what are some of the biggest
lessons you've learned? Practice self defense of the mind. Yeah,
(20:33):
you don't have to follow every single celebrity if they
trigger you about your lifestyle, about your clothing, about the
way you look about your skin. Like if you feel
bad thoughts about yourself from looking at someone's page, it's
okay to block, mute, delete, repeat. It's vital. Actually, it's
so vital for your mental health. There's so much negativity.
(20:54):
You really have to pay attention to what you're feeding yourself,
and so many lies, like there's there's so many photoshop
and like, you know, all these celebrities selling all these
detox and diet products or waste trainers, or it's like
internet powder that's going to make you fire like three days.
And I know that because I took all of them.
(21:15):
It is unbelievable. That my still unbelievable all the stuff
that I took, and I'm so sorry. I know I'm
never coming back. I have horrified your mother. Really great
little experiment where I followed all of my favorite women's magazines,
(21:38):
and I also followed all of my boyfriend's magazines. Devastating
to the difference between, like how he's being nurtured and
nourished all the time, and mine was all just to
make me look thinner and younger, and all the stories
were just about like which hairstyle suits your face shape?
The most women made to feel insecure, like what else
can we fix on you? And they make us insecure
about every single inch of our bodies. I saw some
(21:59):
very famous women talking about needing her earlobes, like redone
earlobe plastic, and it's like, I'm worried about rape, I'm
worried about equity and equality. I'm worried about my reproductive
rights being taken away. I don't want to worry about
my motherlobes. I don't want to worry about my elbow.
Fat me called out, this is what I think is
so interesting, And when I figured this out, it changed
(22:21):
everything for me. It's a perfect cycle. You can go
through any woman who has ever stood out or spoken
out or just done really well. For a while, we
build her up, we exaggerate how fantastic, how beautiful, how
incredible she is. That people start to become a little
bit sick of her face, and that's when the destruction
becomes easy because we have no empathy left for her.
We have no sympathy. We don't trust. So when I
first grew up, I adored you and like the nutty
(22:44):
professor and everything you ever did before that, I was
obsessed with you. And then I started reading headlines about
you around the time that Will was doing Wild World West.
I remember the exact headline that made me be like,
I don't know if I like this woman. It was
forgive me in this blunt but it was like Jada says,
stay away from sexy Salma. Oh yeah, like uotations as
(23:08):
if they knew you had said it in the privacy
of your own Next never know what actually happens to
be one of my favorite friends, one of my favorite women.
But I believed the headlines that I read about you
because you were just doing too well and your marriage
was too happy, and like you're writing, and it is
a cycle. I've been in that cycle quite a few time,
(23:31):
and you keep going. I love you. And it was
because partially of this show and also just watching you
come and speak out about so many things that just
made me fall in love with you again because finally
you were speaking on your own terms. You had to
build your own show to finally not be misrepresented. I've
come to the understanding that were things that I've gone through,
(23:53):
and you know, we have raised my kids the way
I've decided to have my marriage. I look in my life,
I go, I get it. I can see what I
wouldn't be good for you. But it's like you get
to a place where you're so comfortable with yourself. It's like,
it's all right, you don't have to like me. It's okay.
I remember the whole Anne Hathaway thing, the way that
(24:13):
our generation like ridicule this woman for just rehearsing an
Oscar speech. Who wouldn't rehearse an Oscar speak the way
she got troll. I mean, she was one of the
dumbest cases of cancel culture, where it's just like they
canceled her for seeming pre rehearses like, we cannot bear
an organized woman. We cannot bear a premeditated woman, a
confident woman. We cannot bear a woman who has a plan.
(24:38):
There's nothing more dangerous with our society. And so a
woman must seem always grateful, always surprised. We must always
seem like lost little girls. Yeah, we have to make
this face on Instagram because we need to make sure
that men understand that we don't know where we are
or what's going on, and so they must come and
save us. This was a great conversy too, And I
(25:01):
have to say that we like Legendary. I love that
show very much. I'm so inspired by you the show,
what you've done with it. This feels like being invited
on OPRAH in the nineties. You know what I mean,
You really talk about real that I've never heard people
talk about on the TV before. You're changing the conversation
(25:21):
for women, and I see the impact that you're having
in real time. But I took it really seriously like
being invited on this show because there are people who
genuinely say about me every day that she is the
worst person on the internet, and I'm like the worst,
really real me, the worst, Give me top ten. A
brown woman with passion is always going to get the heat,
(25:43):
not always. That's what we're here to do. It ends,
It ends without for sure. To join the red table
Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow
wors if face book dot com slash red table Talk.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk
(26:05):
podcast produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.
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